11-year-old Photoshoot

My son has just turned 11. How can that be? I surely can't be old enough to have an 11-year-old boy. No, young man! It seems like only a year ago he was learning to walk. I know people say things like that all the time, but it just feels so true.

Well, I can't NOT take pictures of my amazing son every year. I want to document every milestone and not forget a single year of his life.

Which leads us to the photoshoot we did before his birthday. Check out my adorable baby!

It's Christmas! Day 25: Drive Around and Look at Lights

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

I had a post planned for yesterday. It was a craft. However, you know how the holidays go. I never got around to making it. Well, I made half of it, but I never finished it. So, instead of stressing myself out, I decided to just let it go. Because sometimes, that's what we have to do in order to keep our sanity as parents.

So anyway, today is Christmas! Eek! Hopefully, your holiday season has been amazing and continues to be amazing. Unfortunately, today is my last Christmas post. But I’ve saved yet another favorite holiday tradition for last. Now, we normally do this on the 23rd or 24th, but this is something you can do on Christmas night or probably even the whole week after.

We got our PJs on, made our hot cocoa, and got in the car to drive around town looking at all the beautiful Christmas lights.
I made a list of all the houses that traditionally have awesome displays. We were super excited to see all the beautiful displays.

We had a great time!

This is just such a fun little tradition that we have that doesn’t require any planning (unless you’re hunting for the best houses around). It doesn’t cost anything (except maybe some gas). And it’s a bunch of fun that you can have with your family in the days leading up to Christmas. Now get out there and go look at those lights!

I'm going to take a little break from blogging to enjoy some time with my family so I'll see you guys all in the New Year.

So for the last time this year, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 23: Decorating Cookies

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Yesterday, we made our delicious sugar cookies. We also made a half batch of gingerbread cookies. They're my husband's favorite. Now, it’s time to decorate them! So, what kind of topping are we going to use? Icing? Frosting? Well, we’ve decided to go with frosting.

We decided to use this recipe for our frosting. And personally, I think it's delicious. It's just the right amount of sweet and tastes perfect with the sugar cookies I make.

Now, we're going to pipe our decorations on. Since we only have 1 piping tip, they're all going to look similar, but that's okay. Plus, my son has some pretty cool sprinkles to decorate with so we're going to try to make these cookies look awesome! In fact, he decided that I would do the frosting and he would do the sprinkle details. It was so much fun!

Here's how they turned out!

So don’t just make plain cookies, decorate them to really show Santa what you’ve got.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 22: Baking Cookies

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Today, we are preparing for Santa’s visit in just a few short days by baking some cookies. We’ve decided to go for the traditional sugar cookies (hopefully decorated beautifully!). But, decorations are for tomorrow. Today, we’re just making the cookies. There is a sugar cookie recipe that I have used multiple times that I love. These taste a lot better than other sugar cookies I’ve had. I mean, not to toot my own horn...but toot toot!

So, first thing’s first, let’s get our supplies together. We’ll need cookie sheets, parchment paper, 1 cup measuring cup, 1 teaspoon measuring spoon, a rolling pin, 2 mixing bowls, whisk, and electric beaters.
Then, we’ll get our ingredients together. We’ll need flour, baking powder, unsalted butter, sugar, an egg, and vanilla extract.

First we’re going to whisk together 3 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
In a separate bowl, we’re going to beat together 1 cup of unsalted butter and 1 cup of sugar. Then, we’re going to add in an egg and some vanilla and then mix it up again.
Now, we’re going to slowly add in the flour mixture about a cup at a time. We want to mix our dough until it begins to clump together (possibly not using all the flour).
Then, we’re going to gather up our dough and knead it with our hands until it’s nice and smooth. We’re going to roll it into a ball, wrap it with plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge for about half an hour to chill. You want it to be a little firm, but not hard.
It’s time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees, take our dough out of the fridge, and roll it out. We’re going to cut shapes out with cookie cutters and place those on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Then, we’re going to place these in the freezer for just a couple minutes to make sure they don’t lose their shape while they’re in the oven.
We’re just going to pop these in for about 8 minutes and just check on them from there. Cooking time will depend on the size and thickness of your cookies.

Now that these are done, we’re going to let them cool overnight. Come back tomorrow to decorate them with us! And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 18: Make a neighbor gift basket PLUS Chocolate Snowball Cookies

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

The most important part about Christmas is giving. Whether you’re giving thanks, giving presents to your family, giving money to charity, giving toys to kids in need, or just giving a little Christmas cheer to other people, you’re truly embracing the true meaning of Christmas. In my house, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and talk about being kind and how God has given so much to us. However, whether you live in a religious household or not, giving is such an important lesson to learn.

So, while we do try to do multiple things to give back during the holiday season (like ringing bells for the salvation army or random acts of kindness), today we’re talking about making a gift basket for a couple neighbors. We want to spread some Christmas cheer and make our friends feel special.

There were a couple things we needed to consider.
Will people actually eat cookies if we make them? (You know, due to this whole Covid thing.)
How much do we want to spend?
Who do we want to make gift baskets for?

After we answered these questions, we got to putting our baskets together. We included some homemade chocolate cookies, homemade candy, a jar of homemade hot cocoa mix, some finger puppets, a couple crafts, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, stickers, and notebooks.

Here's how we made the cookies that we ended up including:

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups + 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Steps:
1. Add flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt to medium bowl. Mix to combine. Set aside.
2. Add butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar to large bowl. Beat with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Crack eggs into small bowl. Throw away shells and wash your hands.
4. Add eggs and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix until smooth and creamy.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix until a soft dough forms.
6. Cover dough and refrigerate 1 hour.
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
8. Scoop a level tablespoon of dough. Roll into a 1-inch ball. Repeat to use all cookie dough.
9. Add 1/3 cup sugar to one small bowl. Add powdered sugar to another small bowl.
10. Make snowballs! Dip each ball of dough in sugar, then dunk generously in powdered sugar to coat.
11. Set dough on baking sheets.
12. Bake 10 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Serve.

I think they turned out pretty good! And they taste delicious!

Owen had a blast running up to their houses and putting our little gifts on their front porch!

So do something kind for someone else!

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 17: DIY Gifts PLUS an easy DIY for your kids

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

One very necessary part of Christmas is gift giving. With online shopping (hello, Amazon!), picking out gifts for people is easier than ever. Most of my family have wishlists that I can shop from. However, sometimes, I like to add a little something extra. Today, we’re talking DIY gifts.

I have a lot of crafting hobbies, but my main one is crochet. Here are the gifts I made for people this year.
I made a pocket shawl for my mother-in-law.

A couple cherry pie pot holders for my parents.

An astronaut for my son.

A Mandolorean ornament for my husband.

A small Dobby (you know, from Harry Potter) for a Secret Santa gift.

And Ron Weasley (again, from Harry Potter) for another Secret Santa gift.

My husband and I have recently gotten into 3D printing in the past year, so we made a couple gifts with that this year, too.
For my Secret Santa gift, I made a Ravenclaw bookmark and a spinning deathly hallows pendant.

I also made a Gryffindor bookmark for my other Secret Santa gift.

I plan to make a couple more things before Christmas, but I'm almost out of time!

Now, for the reason you’re really here, my son and I are going to show you how to make an awesome DIY gift that he made for his grandma and grandpa.

We made candle art! First, you need to cut a piece of tissue paper that just fits on your candle.
Then, draw whatever you want on this piece of tissue paper with markers. I had my son think about things his grandparents like and things he likes to do with them.

When you're done coloring, cut a piece of wax paper that fits around your candle, but is about 6 inches longer.
Put your tissue paper in place on the candle, wrap the wax paper around it, and hold onto that extra bit of wax paper while you carefully use a hairdryer to melt the tissue paper into the candle.

Not all gifts need to be bought from a store. They mean so much more and I get so much more excited to give them when I've put time and effort into the gift. Seriously! Try it!

As always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 15: Lowe's Kids Workshop Kit

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Over the past couple of years, we have taken our son to SO MANY Home Depot and Lowe’s workshops. My son loves them! There’s just nothing like building something with your own hands and having a finished product to play with in the end.

Well, lately, we haven’t been doing them as often. First of all, our Home Depot is always out of the projects and we just can't seem to get the timing right. So if we want one, we have to buy it online, which we have ordered a couple of, but when you can get them for free, it just feels different. Lowe’s quit doing them for a while, but recently started back up during the pandemic. With both of these, though, you just pick them up and complete the projects at home.

For December, I believe there is an ornament project and a cookie platter project with Home Depot that you can order for about $5 each. However, we chose to do the Lowe’s project. I signed my son up online, my husband went to pick up the project on the 12th (but they didn't ask for our name so I'm not sure why we had to sign up), and then my son put it together. Here is his Christmas train!

So, if you've got the time and are able to, get out there and build something!

As always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 14: Game Night

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

During the busy Christmas season, we always try to find a night to just have some good old-fashioned fun. How do we do that? Game Night! We have a little bookshelf where we keep all of our games. Well, most of our games. Our bookshelf is currently bulging and we can’t fit all of our games in it.

On game night, sometimes it’s just our family of 3. And sometimes, we are able to have other people over to enjoy game night with us. During the pandemic, we haven’t been able to have very many people over since we’re trying to keep our bubble pretty small. That being said, there are a few people that we’ve included in our bubble to keep ourselves sane.

Anyway, we normally choose 2 or 3 games to get out and play. This time, we chose Clue and Pay Day. We had a blast just playing games just the 3 of us.

So, make sure you’re taking time for fun and playing with your kids.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 13: Grinch Night

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Sometimes, you just need to snuggle up with your kiddos and have a movie night. Well, one way to make that even more fun is to do it under a blanket fort. We transformed our entire living room in our basement into a giant blanket fort where we ate food and watched a Christmas movie. We usually make much smaller forts, but decided to make a huge one this time so that we could all fit under it, including our dog. So, what movie did we watch? Well, the Grinch, of course! We ended up only having enough time to watch the 1966 and the 2000 version with Jim Carey so I was told that we're going to need a second Grinch night in order to watch the 2018 movie and the musical version. So I guess be on the lookout for that.

To make it even more special, we didn't just have a regular dinner, we made a Grinch-themed smorgasbord. We had Grinch chips and salsa, Grinch kebabs (grape, slice of banana, strawberry, mini marshmallow), a veggie tray Christmas tree, and pretzel bites (made with mint truffle and dark chocolate kisses and either a red or green MnM on top). Everything was delightful!

To make the pretzel bites, we layed out a bunch of pretzels, placed kisses on top of them, baked them for 4 minutes at 250 degrees, smooshed an MnM on top right after they came out of the oven, and then threw them in the fridge to cool for about 30 minutes. Since we decided to use 2 different kinds of kisses, we put green MnMs on top of the mint truffle kisses and red MnMs on top of the dark chocolate ones. That way, we could keep them straight while eating them. We did learn that the mint truffle kisses melt A LOT faster than the dark chocolate ones so if we make these again in the future, we're only going to put them in the oven for 2 minutes.

I want to hear from you, today. What kind of fun holiday traditions do you have with your family? What are your favorite movies to watch together? Let me know in the comments.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 12: Seeing Santa

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Going to see Santa is something we’ve done every year since my son was born. At first, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to even take the risk involved with my son seeing Santa. In fact, I had basically decided it wasn’t going to happen. Then, I saw an ad on Facebook for Bass Pro Shop’s Santa Experience. It looked like a really good option with all the precautions they were taking. So, I talked about it with my husband and he approved. My next step was to talk to my son. He was honestly so excited that we had found a way for him to still see Santa. We made sure to set his expectations at a realistic level. You’re not going to sit on Santa’s lap. Instead, you’re going to sit on a wooden bench in front of him. There will also be a plexiglass wall between you and Santa. You can still talk to him, though. You might just have to talk a little louder since you'll be standing 6 feet away. You’ll need to wear a mask except for when they're taking your picture. And you know what his response was? “So, I’ll still get to see him, talk to him, and take my picture with him?” “Yes.” “Sounds good to me!”

I mean, come on, so proud of his positive attitude.

So, I had to make a reservation in order to see Santa. I believe I saw somewhere that they allow up to 5 families per 15 minute reservation period. However, I’m not 100% sure about that. Reservations are released 7 days prior at midnight. We already knew we wanted to go on a weekday to make sure the crowds in the store wouldn’t be very heavy.

When we got there, we checked in, got our temperature taken, and then waited 6 feet away from the family in front of us. They had a cute little Bass Pro Shop themed 12 days of Christmas thing going on for the 6ft apart place markers. We got there early so we did have to wait a while. And while it didn't feel like they rushed anyone with Santa, we also didn't feel like we waited very long. We also watched the girl sanitize between each group which made us feel better. Overall, our experience with Santa was great! We received our FREE picture, a cute little color-your-own ornament, and a pouch of hot cocoa. I ended up paying $15 online in order to download the picture digitally because I wanted to be able to print it.

So don’t let the pandemic get you down. Whether it's seeing Santa virtually or through a plexiglass wall, don’t miss out on seeing Santa this year.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 10: Sending Christmas Cards

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

One thing we really enjoy doing every year is sending (and receiving) Christmas cards.

There are 3 main kinds of cards to send.

The first kind is your traditional card. Some people still send these, but really, the only ones we receive are from older relatives. You know the cards, they have some cute scene on the front and some cheesy saying inside. I can say, half the fun of sending these cards is going to the store and picking out awesome cards. Sometimes people write a personal note inside and sometimes they just sign it. Either way, it’s fun to see the different cards you get.

The second kind of Christmas card is a picture card. These are the ones we usually send every year. You know the ones. I’m sure if you’re like us, you receive tons every year. Honestly, these are my favorite. I absolutely love to see how people have changed and what their families look like nowadays (especially since I haven’t seen most of these people for a while). Sometimes we just do a picture on the front, sometimes we do pictures on the back, and sometimes we write a little note about how our family is doing. Here’s how our card turned out this year.

The third kind of Christmas card is homemade. I think this is the best kind of card for kids to send. Every year, my son makes homemade cards for his grandparents and sends those out himself.

Today, we’re going to learn how to make a pop-up card.

First, let’s get our supplies. You will need cardstock in a variety of colors, scissors, glue, glitter, stickers, tape, and anything else you can think of that will enhance your card.

Now, we’re going to work on the base of our card. I cut a piece of cardstock to 4 inches by 6 inches. This is the inside of our card. We need to fold it in half. Now, we’re going to use a ruler to measure 1.5 inches from each side. Then, we’re going to measure 1 inch up from those lines. Now, using your scissors, we’re going to cut along those lines. Pull that strip up and fold your card again to create a box shape inside.

For the outside of our card, we’re going to cut a piece of cardstock to be 5 inches by 7 inches. Fold this piece in half just like you did with the inside piece. It’s time to attach the 2 pieces of cardstock. Being careful not to glue along the strip that you cut out, glue your inside piece to your outside piece.

This is the base of our card. Decide what you would like to pop up from your card and create that item. Be sure it’s no more than 2 inches tall though, or it will poke out from your card and the effect just won’t be the same. I chose to create a Christmas tree. Before I put my Christmas tree in place, though, I want to decorate the background for my scene inside. I’m going to put my tree in a city. Now that I have my cityscape, I’m going to glue my Christmas tree onto the box to make it stand out.

The last part for the inside of my card is to write a message and sign my name to the bottom.

But that can’t be the end. We need to decorate the front of our card. I’m going to go pretty minimalistic for the front of my card. Now that we’re done, it’s time to put our cards in envelopes, address them, slap a stamp on them, and put them in the mailbox to be taken to their new homes.

I hope you liked our little activity and no matter what kind of Christmas cards you send, no matter how many you send, I hope you will consider sending a couple to the people you love the most. I know I always feel really special when I get cards in the mail.

As always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 9: Make Paper Snowflakes

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

Today, we have a simple craft that anyone can do. And it doesn’t require anything you don’t already have at home. We’re making paper snowflakes!

First, we’re going to gather our supplies. We’ll need plain white paper (cut into a square) and scissors. That’s it!

Now, if you’re not feeling very creative, do a quick google search to find a snowflake template to print out. We have a couple here that we’re going to do. Plus, we’re going to make some of our own as well.

Our first step is to fold our paper. There are a couple different ways to do this, but today, we’re going to fold our paper in half diagonally. Then, we’re going to fold it in half diagonally again. Now, we’re going to fold it into thirds. The last thing we need to do is snip off these top pieces to make it flat across the top.

Now it’s time to start cutting our design! You can literally do anything here. We looked up a couple designs for some and just went crazy with the rest. Here’s how they turned out:

So go get cutting! These are so much fun to make.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 8: Ringing a Bell for the Salvation Army

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

We wanted to give back this Christmas. And we have a couple different plans, but the one I want to talk about today is being a bell ringer for the Salvation Army. I always ask my son if he’s interested in doing this, but he usually says no. Well, this year I got him on board!

We went online at registertoring.com and looked for locations and times that would fit with our schedule to ring. They did implement a couple rules this year due to COVID-19 like wearing a mask, not providing the aprons and instead providing a badge, and asking that you step back 6 feet if someone is making a donation. When you sign up, you register for a 2-hour session. We wanted to pick a session that would be while it was light outside so that it wouldn’t be too cold.

We signed up to ring at a local grocery store for:
Tuesday, December 8th from 3pm to 5pm
Friday, December 18th from 3pm to 5pm

When we got there, our bells and badges were waiting for us along with a bag that had hand sanitizer, gloves, and masks. It did get a little chilly, so if you're planning to do this, bundle up. I'm so glad we were wearing gloves. We danced around to keep ourselves warm and hummed some Christmas songs to ourselves to keep us entertained. We're so excited to do it again next week!

If you get the chance, I highly recommend giving back as often as you are able.

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! Day 4: Write a Letter to Santa

It’s Christmas! is a 25 day blog and vlog segment that I’ll be doing this December to bring you crafts, reviews, and ideas to make your Christmas season even more fun this year (especially, with this pandemic thing we’re all trying to navigate).

Hopefully, my family can inspire yours to not let this crazy year ruin the holiday season for you.

One thing that most families do every year, is write a letter to Santa. I wanted this letter to be special this year. My son is 10 years old and still believes in Santa. I know some parents out there think he’s too old and should know better, but I say, keep the magic alive for as long as possible. That being said, he’s going to stop believing soon, so again, I wanted this letter to be special.

I started by printing off a template for the letter to make it look extra special. I had my son use a fancy pen to write his ideas. In order to teach my son what the holiday is all about, I decided to give him some ideas. Santa is a very generous and important man. You should do your best to speak to him (or write to him) with respect. For instance, just saying I want this and I want that comes across as a little demanding. So, in order to be more polite, perhaps you could start your letter with appreciation for his generous acts in years past. You could apologize for the mean or rude things you’ve done this year. You could tell Santa how you’re going to work on being a better person in the future. Don’t forget to also tell Santa what you would like for Christmas, though. And make sure you thank him for his time. Sign your name at the end so Santa knows who sent him this amazing letter.

Here’s how my son’s turned out:

Make sure your kids write to Santa this year and every year to keep that magic alive!

And as always, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!